The Dims have landed in Barcelona.

Flight was fun - Our seats were at the back of the plane and a bunch of lubricated lads, were in the mood for a sing song and semi-riot. I had the aisle seat closest to the toilets and every time I looked up the crack was mighty. [As opposed to the Craic] I love a pint of the black stuff myself - But they really shouldn’t sell it in the airport - planes are enclosed and confined spaces.

So it was with some relief that the plane landed [almost an hour late] and we got to suck in some fresh humid Catalan air.

Then it was a question of finding the car hire place. That took another 30 minutes and the queue 40 minutes. Upgraded the car to one we could just about shoe horn the five of us into and it was then that we realised we didn’t have a map of Barcelona. So back to the car hire place and ask for a map. The guy gives me a map of Spain. “Barcelona?” - “No map of Barcelona.” He says. This is Barcelona, I’m at Barcelona airport and you have no map of Barcelona?” “Ci, no map of Barthelona.” I wiped the spit off my face and returned to the car. I told Mrs Dim - “No map of Barthelona” She wiped the spit of her face - So how are we going to find the Apartment?

We’ve got half a tank of fuel, it’s 25 miles from Barcelona, we don’t have a road map, It’s dark and I’m wearing sunglasses. How the feck should I know?

I had a vague idea of where things are in Barcelona from studying the book I bought on the city, that is languishing unpacked on the bed at home in Westport.

“Did you pack the book?”

“I thought you packed the book.”

This started a ten minute argument which I lost when Mrs Dim went all in with - “Tosser!”

I had no come back.

The sea is East - if we keep driving until we hit it all we have to do is head north.

Eventually - Somehow - Some might say miraculously I found Diagonal Mar and St Josep Pla. Which is the street our apartment is on. I pulled up at a random spot and it just happened to be where we where staying and our contact with the key to the apartment was waiting. He looked like Hiro from Heroes - Only Spanish and he spoke just as much English. His vehicle of choice was a Honda moped. This was not looking good.

But then we were shown the apartment - And it was / is fantastic. Ill try and post pictures later.

Only problem now was food. It was 1.00am by now and everything was shut. There was water and a bottle of Rioja in the apartment but you can’t give that to the Dim kids.

We got back in the car and drove around until we could find a food emprioum of some sort.

Wherever you go in the world there are some things you will always be able to rely upon. In every major city you will find an Irish pub, a McDonalds, a mad drunk, [usually the same one] and a Kebab shop open until the wee small hours willing to serve bad food to bad behaving, boozed up customers.

It was an oasis in a barren desert.

Our first night in Barcelona and we dined in style on turkish kebabs and chips.

But the Dims have arrived and now bring on Gus Hansen, Negreanu, Raymer and Co.

The Fatboy is fed and hungry for chips.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 26th, 2007 at 11:02 am and is filed underEPT Barcelona You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.